NATURAL DISASTERS IN HAWAII

I decided to Google "Hawaii natural disasters." 

 Here's what i found.

Not a lot of fires are mentioned.

AND THEN THERE'S THIS FROM THE LONDON INDEPENDENT:

What makes the horror currently unfolding all the more disturbing is that wildfires were regarded as uncommon in Hawaii until relatively recently, with those that did break out usually attributed to eruptions from one of the archipelago’s six active volcanoes or to lightning strikes.

“On the other islands with less volcanic activity, fires did occur, but very, very rarely,” Professor David Beilman of the University of Hawaii told USA Today this week.

“This Maui situation is an Anthropocene phenomenon,” he said, referring to the epoch defined by humanity’s influence over the planet.

The tropical paradise, situated 2,000 miles west of the US mainland, has only really begun to experience the consequences of that influence in recent decades.

The last time Hawaii suffered a major burst of wildfires was in August 2018, when 70mph gusts of wind driven by Hurricane Lane shepherded flames towards Lahaina, the same town ravaged this week.

In that incident, 2,000 acres of land, 30 vehicles and 21 structures were ruined, according to local newspaper The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, with the fire racing across fields once dedicated to growing sugar cane but unharvested since 1999.

One local man told the paper at the time that he had seen “tornadoes of fire whirling up to the sky”.

“I’ve never seen something so devastating,” he added, aghast at the recollection.

Another resident recounted his own terror: “There was smoke everywhere and the fire was all around. We just literally got in the car and got out as quickly as we could.”